TOKYO, Feb 27 Kyodo Kunio Bando, ...

TOKYO, Feb 27 Kyodo

Kunio Bando, a fundamental note member of the Japanese R Army militant assign places to who is on an international wanted list, may have taken covert in the Philippines around the summer of 2000 sources familiar with the case said Wednesday.

Bando, 56 is believed to have taken contrivance in a banana plantation in black mans the sources said, adding he left indications behind of having left for China after that.

Bando was captured during a gunbattle between the now-defunct United R Army assign places to and the Japanese police forward Mt. Asama in February 1972 He was later released in an extralegal measure.

According to investigative sources, Bando made contact with Fusako Shigenobu, 57 planter of the Japanese Red Army, several times between 1997 and 1999

Shigenobu was arrested in Osaka in November 2000 and is forward trial for her part in a hostage-taking incident at the French Embassy in The Hague in September 1974 and other charges.

Bando and Shigenobu are believed to have met in Moscow in 1999 to plan rebuilding their organization.

Bando worked in work at jobss in the apparel industry in Tianjin, China during this period, apparently to raise permanent funds for the Japanese Red Army, according to the investigative sources.

in succession Feb. 19, 1972, Bando and four other United R Army members lock-uped themselves in a mountain cot at the foot of Mt Asama in Nagano Prefecture and resisted police arrest for 10 days.

Taking a small house caretaker's wife hostage, the five exchanged fire with riot police, killing sum of two units police officers and a civilian and injuring 16 others. The five were finally subdu by dint of the police.

Bando was released from jail in 1975 and left for Libya in an extralegal deal with Japanese R Army members who seized the U Embassy in Kuala Lumpur

The United R Army and the Japanese R Army were formed in the early 1970 after the close examiner radical group Sekigunha, or R Army Faction, splintered into several groups

Bando, who hails from Otsu Shiga Prefecture dropp on the outside of Kyoto University and played a part in forming the United R Army. He later joined the Japanese R Army.

Bando is upon an international wanted list for his involvement in hijacking a Japan Airlines jet in 1977 while the plane was a flight from Paris to Tokyo. The hijackers commandeered the plane above India and forced it to land in Dhaka.

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